Robert Key, the former MP, has resigned as a trustee of the Edward Heath
Charitable Foundation after a disagreement over the former Conservative
prime minister’s home.

Former Salisbury MP Robert Key has resigned as a trustee of the Edward Heath Charitable Foundation after a row over the future of the former prime minister’s elegant home Arundells in Wiltshire.

Key stepped down after a last-minute business plan was put forward to re-open the late Sir Edward Heath’s historical Salisbury property to the public this summer. Key opposed the proposition, claiming the £7 million house should instead be sold with the money being used for grants for young people with interests in music and sailing.

Speaking of his decision, the 67-year-old Conservative politician said the way for the charity to help people is to sell. “The best thing is to sell the property and apply the money to young people,” he says.

“I do not think it is appropriate nor in the interest of Edward Heath’s reputation to raise millions of charitable pounds to maintain a building which is going to be maintained anyway.”

The home has been the subject of debate for years since Heath’s death in 2005 when he left it in the care of a charity with the hope that it would be opened to the public. However, although it attracted up to 14,000 visitors a year when it first opened in 2008, numbers have since dwindled to less than 40 visitors a day.

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